We have a lot to be thankful for. Our [Black] foremothers and forefathers paved the way for us working with the “system” so that we could have the momentum to work without it and against it. Boss: The Black Experience in Business, documents the historical and contemporary relevance of “Black innovation, entrepreneurship, and perseverance in an economy determined to exclude them” (mkefilm.org). As Black wealth and its impact on the United States economy has become a recurring theme in today's political and social climate, the origins of our “late” economic bloomage has been called into question. Where Stanley Nelson helps identify a linkage between the emancipation of slaves to the systemic need to subdue the success of the Black entrepreneur, we were in awe of its similarities to the call for economic inclusion Byron Allen recently brought up in his Breakfast Club interview.
While it is easy for us to stand in our current reality boasting how “We are not our grandparents”, and hissing at the idea of physical and blatant social control over our lives, our ancestors lived in a different world. They had to navigate differently to create the spaces in which the rest of us now thrive.
If we take Madame CJ Walker as an example, we can see how even some of our most noted Black success stories come from a place of cultural compromise. As the film discusses, Walker became the first self-made woman millionaire from helping other Black women assimilate. Though that created a wedge within the community, it also emboldened women into a thriving new industry (one we still dominate in today) promoting pride and beauty, even though it was skewed from our natural attraction, and reinforced White cultural standards.
Learning our history helps bolster our confidence.
Boss reinforces us with the power we need to make changes, lead instead of following and demand more economic freedom from a society undoubtedly helped shape. We are constantly told that we don't work hard enough for the opportunities that are presented to us. When in actuality each turn we have made with progress, we have been purposely set back through lynching, massacres, and vandalization of Black business and its leaders.
As we sit in an era with more education, more infiltration of infrastructures that were made to keep us out, this documentary is a wake-up call for not just Black America, but for our privileged counterparts. We will not only be taking a seat at the table, but we will be making our own.
As CopyWrite is a Black-owned business . . . we feel that!
The Milwaukee Music Video Show
